And for the first and last time in the course of her evidence Nell’s voice was loud enough to be heard throughout the court, as she uttered this terribly damaging speech.
When she had spoken, and stood staring at the coroner with wide-open blue eyes, a great wave of horror passed over the court, and the jury to a man felt sorry for her. They had all known this dissipated fisherman, they all felt the gulf of repugnance that must have existed between this refined young girl and him. And, while the conclusion was forced in upon their minds that she had taken violent means to rid herself of him and his persecution, they felt that they would have given a great deal to have been able to hush the matter up.
For while the loathing she so frankly expressed gave a reason and almost an excuse for her crime, on the other hand her fearless avowal of feeling now, when it was so greatly to her interest to hide it, seemed to show that she was in a state of mind in which she could hardly be considered responsible for her actions.
Meanwhile, however, the inquiry had to go on.
“Well, then,” pursued the coroner, getting away from the fatal subject and speaking with extra dryness to hide his own sympathy, “you went to Colonel Bostal’s house, and you and Miss Bostal went together to see Jem Stickels at his lodging to ask how he was?”
But here again Nell blundered past the opportunity thus given her for clearing her own character.
“I didn’t want to go. Miss Theodora made me go,” said she.
“Well, you went, at any rate, and you saw him, and spoke to him.”
“No; I didn’t speak to him.”
“Well, you saw him, didn’t you?”